Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Distinguished professor at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

The aim of this paper is to critically review several interpretations of Kantian sensible intuition. The first interpretation is the recent construal of Kantian sensible intuition as a mental analogue of a direct referential term. The second is the old, widespread assumption that Kantian intuitions do not refer to mind-independent entities, such as...

This paper is a new defense of the view that visual hallucinations lack content. The claim is that visual hallucinations are illusory not because their content is nonveridical, but rather because they seem to represent when they fail to represent anything in the first place. What accounts for the phenomenal character of visual experiences is not th...

Kant’s Refutation targets what he calls the problematic idealist. This is understood by the mainstream of Kantian scholarship as the global skeptic that Descartes briefly adumbrated in his first Meditation. The widespread view in the literature is that the fate of the Refutation is tied to its success as an argument against this Cartesian global sk...

According to Papineau’s qualitative view, experiences instantiate both representational and phenomenal properties. The instantiation of phenomenal properties is people undergoing the relevant experience. In contrast, the instantiation of representational properties relies on changing relationships between the person and the environment in which the...

This paper tries to meet the three basic constraints in the metaphysics of perception—that, following Schellenberg (Philos Stud 149:19–48, 2010), I call here the particularity constraint, the indistinguishable constraint, and the phenomenological constraint—by putting forward a new combination of the two well-known contradictory views in this field...

Faria’s recent publication aims to show that “if anti-individualism is correct, then the obscurity of validity is more widespread than we need to assume for present purposes.” In rejecting “a variety of exculpating moves, designed to shield the rationality of the possibly unlucky reasoner,” Faria suggests that content externalism can drastically af...

Upon her release, Mary gains new knowledge aligned with B-type materialism and property dualism, even though she already possesses knowledge of all the facts and truths related to color and color vision during her time in captivity. I argue that this “cognitive progress” can only be accounted for by the acquisition of a new nonconceptual representa...

Em contraste com a tradicional autoconsciência reflexiva na qual o sujeito se refere consciente e deliberadamente a si mesmo, a tradição fenomenológica, de Husserl a Heidegger e Sartre, postula uma forma de autoconsciência intransitiva pré-reflexiva primitiva. Infelizmente, essa autoconsciência intransitiva pré-reflexiva é sempre caracterizada nega...

This paper introduces a novel perspective on the intricate interplay between the conscious and representational aspects of visual experience. This viewpoint diverges from traditional representationalism and internal physical state theories. I propose that to understand the conscious (phenomenal) properties of experience, one should consider drawing...

In this essay, I present a brand-new naturalistic model of self-consciousness that draws inspiration from Dretske's program for naturalizing the notion of representation. Dretske's naturalization program is very ambitious in many respects. However, one of the crucial aims is overlooked in the literature, namely the abandonment of the traditional co...

Kant labels his transcendental propositions as “principles” instead of mathematical “theorems” because they have the quite peculiar property of “making possible their ground of proof (Beweisgrund), namely experience”. The paper introduces an original reading. Importantly, this reading does not conflict with established interpretations, as it does n...

Os lockdowns e as políticas públicas relacionadas à restrição comportamental e econômica, introduzidas em resposta à pandemia de COVID-19, são criticadas com base em três conjuntos de ideias e argumentos organizados de acordo com o provável grau de controvérsia associado aos pressupostos que os guiam. O primeiro conjunto de argumentos faz uso do ra...

This paper addresses Fichte's puzzle of self-consciousness.

The idea that what we perceive are tropes (abstract particulars) is anything but new. In fact, it was one of the reasons why the ontology of tropes was postulated in the first place. Still, the claim that we perceive tropes is invariably and purely based on pre-philosophical intuitions or, indirectly, as a supporting argument for the advantages of...

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein's claim that "an 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria" (PI §580) there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein's private language argument (henceforth PLA) overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein's sugges...

This paper is a new non-descriptivist defense of non-conceptualism, based on a new interpretation of Kant's metaphysics of concepts. We advance the following claim: What distinguishes non-conceptual from conceptual singular representations is the way partial representations of the object's features are integrated into the whole representation of th...

Neste ensaio, defendem-se as seguintes teses: 1- o know-how não é uma forma de saber prático destituído de sentido proposicional; 2- a relação entre cada percepção e o corpo próprio é metafisicamente contingente (os organismos e corpos podem variar, como podem inclusive variar os espaços que ocupam em uma mesma experiência), 3- cabe ao cérebro conf...

This essay aims to expose the metaphysical underpinnings of enactivism. While enactivism relies heavily on rejecting the traditional mind-body problem by excluding the familiar thought experiments that favor phenomenal dualism, the crucial point that is overlooked is instead the brain-body problem, specifically the crucial interaction between the b...

This essay aims to expose the metaphysical underpinnings of enactivism. While enactivism relies heavily on rejecting the traditional mind-body problem by excluding the familiar thought experiments that favor phenomenal dualism, the crucial point that is overlooked is instead the brain-body problem, specifically the crucial interaction between the b...

This paper explores the crucial connection between the brain and other organs of the body and the concept of embodied sensorimotor contingencies. Our contention is this: enactivism in all its forms reverses the conventional order of things. It is not the embodied sensorimotor actions that shape and configure brain patterns, but rather the "brainets...

O objetivo deste artigo é avaliar o naturalismo biológico à luz do debate adaptacionista. Como é notório, Searle busca fundamentar explicitamente a sua teoria da mente nas ciências biológicas. Entretanto, a biologia evolutiva recebe pouco destaque no interior de sua obra, o que resulta em importantes confusões teóricas quanto ao adaptacionismo. Nes...

We set forth what one may call a “constitutional reading” in opposition to the traditional widespread “constructivist reading” of the object of cognition. In the light of the so-called one-object view reading of Transcendental idealism, the object of cognition is nothing but the object that exists in itself insofar as it appears to our cognitive ap...

Recent developments of transcendental arguments reflect the struggle to accommodate Stroud’s devastating objection by giving up of failed expectations in providing a proof of what the external-world skeptic calls into question: knowledge of the existence of the outside world. Since Strawson capitulation in 1984, the truth-direct transcendental argu...

Meu objetivo consiste em desenvolver um modelo teórico alternativo para a cognição direta dos estados elementares de terceiros à chamada Teoria da Interação (doravante TI), também conhecida como abordagem da “segunda pessoa”. O modelo que proponho emerge de uma reformulação crítica do modelo de percepção deslocada (displaced perception) proposto po...

(Este artigo faz parte de um projeto da Trans/Form/Ação: revista de filosofia da Unesp. Trata-se do Dossiê Filosofia Autoral, a ser publicado em 2022.) Neste ensaio defenderemos as seguintes teses: 1- o know-how não é uma forma de saber prático destituído de sentido proposicional; 2- a relação entre cada percepção e o corpo próprio é metafisicament...

Readings of Kant's Critique as endorsing phenomenalism have occupied the spotlight in recent times: ontological phenomenalism, semantic phenomenalism, analytical phenomenalism, epistemological phenomenalism, and so on. Yet, they raise the same old coherence problem with the Critique: are they compatible with Kant's Refutation of Idealism? Are they...

The author defends the naturalizing program of the notion of representation against the primitivist view according to which the notion of representation as belonging to psychology as a mature science is irreducible. First, the author concedes that the original teleological project trivializes the concept of representation by applying it to bacteria...

This paper presents and defends an alternative version to the so-called strategy of phenomenal concepts (aka PCS) in defense of type B materialism in Jackson’s knowledge argument. Endorsing Ball and Tye’s criticism, I argue in favor of the following claims. First: Mary’s newly acquired content is nonconceptual in the light of all available criteria...

Duas questões fundamentais do pirronismo serão abordadas, a primeira é de natureza histórica: seria tal Neopirronismo congruente com o espírito e a letra do Pirronismo original? Nesse particular a resposta não poderia ser mais afirmativa. Distinguindo-se tanto chamada leitura dita “Urbana” quanto da leitura dita “Rústica,” não há como negar origina...

The focus of this paper is Cassirer’s Neo-Kantian reading of Kant’s conception of unity of space. Cassirer’s neo-Kantian reading is largely in conformity with the mainstream of intellectualist Kant-scholars, which is unsurprising, given his own intellectualist view of space and perception and his rejection of the existence of a ‘merely sensory cons...

Neste artigo, apresento e defendo uma versão alternativa à chamada estratégia dos conceitos fenomenais em defesa do materialismo tipo B no clássico argumento do conhecimento de Jackson. Endossando a crítica de Ball e Tye à estratégia dos conceitos fenomenais, argumento em favor das seguintes teses. Primeira tese: o conteúdo recém-adquirido por Mary...

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no i...

The idea that what we perceive are tropes (abstract particulars) is anything but new. In fact, it was one of the reasons why the ontology of tropes was postulated in the first place. Still, the claim that we perceive tropes is invariably and purely based on pre-philosophical intuitions or, indirectly, either as a supporting argument for the advanta...

In this paper I take side on externalist incompatibilism. However, I intend to radicalize the position. First, based on my criticism of Burge's anaphoric proposal, I argue that there is no reasoning‐transparency: the reasoner is blind to the reasoning he is performing. Second, assuming a global form of content‐externalism, I argue that “in the head...

Kant was never satisfied with the version of his “Refutation” published in 1787 (KrV, B 275-279). His dissatisfaction is already evident in the footnote added to the preface of the second edition of the Critique in 1787. As a matter of fact, Kant continued to rework his argument for at least six years after 1787. The main exegetical problem is to f...

The central question of this paper is: what has Kant's Refutation of Idealism argument proven, if anything? What is the real scandal of philosophy and universal human reason? I argue that Kant's Refutation argument can only be considered as sound if we assume that his target is what I call 'metaphysical external-world skepticism' (rather than tradi...

The claim that-concepts serve as rules for the synthesis of representations‖ is understood by the mainstream of Kant's scholarship as if categories and concepts in general are conditions for the constitution of objects out of the manifold of sensations devoid of reference. That is the claim that I wish to question here. The claim comes in different...

My aim is to defend a peculiar epistemic version of the particularity thesis, which results from a sui generis combination of what I call the ‘singular relational view’ and what I call the ‘relativistic content view.’ Particulars are not represented as part of putative singular content. Instead, we are perceptually acquainted with them in the relev...

In this paper, I propose a new nonconceptual reading of the B-Deduction. As Hanna correctly remarks (Int J Philos Stud 19(3):399–415, 2011: 405), the word “cognition” (Erkenntnis/cognitio) has in both editions of the first Critique a wide sense, meaning nonconceptual cognition, and a narrow meaning, in Kant’s own words “an objective perception” (A3...

The purpose of this article is to offer a new view of the key relation between the content and the conscious character of visual experience. The author aims to support the following claims. First, the author rejects the qualia realist claim that conscious character is an intrinsic, nonrepresentational property of visual experience, for example, a p...

In this paper, I argue against the phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS) and in favor of what Chalmers has called type-A materialism ([2006], [2010] p. 111). On her release, Mary makes no cognitive discovery at all; not even a thin non-possibility-eliminating discovery, as Tye has recently claimed [2012]. When she is imprisoned, Mary already...

This article presents a defense of "presentist externalism," that is, the claim that memory contents are fixed by the environment and by the time at which a recollection takes place rather than by those at which the original mental state occurred. Its case is an instance of an argument to the best explanation. The author argues, firstly, that "pres...

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2016v20n2p165 This brief paper is devoted to criticizing the widespread reading of Kant’s first Critique, according to which reference to subject-independent objects is “constituted” by higherorder cognitive abilities (concepts). Let us call this the “constitutional view”. In this paper, I argue that the constit...

This paper is a new defense of the old orthodox view that self-consciousness requires self-concepts. My defense relies on two crucial constraints. The first is what I call Bermúdez's Constraint (2007), that is, the view that any attribution of content must account for the intentional behavior of the subject that reflects her own way of understandin...

This paper is a defense of the old orthodox view that self-consciousness requires self-concepts. We will try to persuade the reader that intelligent beings lacking self-concepts are not self-conscious. The alleged cases of primitive nonconceptual self-consciousness are better understood as ancestors in the developmental prehistory of genuine self-c...

This paper has two aims. First, it aims to provide an adverbial account of the idea of an intransitive self-consciousness and, second, it aims to argue in favor of this account. These aims both require a new framework that emerges from a critical review of Perry's famous notion of the "unarticulated constituents" of propositional content (1986). Fi...

Content nonconceptualism and State conceptualism are motivated by different readings of what I want to call here Bermúdez’s conditions on content-attribution (2007). In one read- ing, what is required is a neo-Fregean content to solve problems of cognitive significance at the nonconceptual level (Toribio, 2008; Duhau, 2011). In the other reading, w...

Este artigo objetiva desenvolver e defender uma nova abordagem para a noção de conteúdo exíguo no âmbito da vertente não-individualista na filosofia da mente e da teoria da informação na semântica. Seu objetivo consiste em mostrar que o conteúdo de certos estados mentais é determinado em parte pelas relações que o indivíduo entretém com as entidade...

O artigo consiste em uma leitura crítica da abordagem de Tugendhat da auto-consciencia à luz da filosofia contemporânea da mente. Rejeitando a abordagem "continental", baseada no tradicional modelo sujeitoobjeto, Tugendhat fornece uma abordagem alternativa da auto-consciência baseada no que ele chama de "abordagem analítica", de acordo com a qual a...

This paper is a defense of the so-called phenomenal-concept strategy, based on a new view of phenomenal concepts as special de re modes of presentation of the phenomenal character of experience. Phenomenal concepts can be explained in physical terms as mental particulars (as phenomenal files) created in the individual's mind to pick out the phenome...

São dois os objetivos desse artigo: considerar em detalhe as objeções contra a concepção existencial do conteúdo da percepção e desenvolver e defender uma versão alternativa da mesma que possa contornar os problemas levantados, em particular, o assim chamado “problema da particularidade”. A tese central a ser defendida aqui é a de que o conteúdo ex...

The aim of this paper is to critically review some contemporary interpretations of the Kantian notion of sensible intuition. In this paper I defend an alternative view in which sensible intuition in Kant is to be seen as what MacDowell (according to Evans) has called a reverse gear sense, which main characteristic is its dependence on the object. I...

O objetivo deste trabalho é rever criticamente algumas interpretações contemporâneas da noção kantiana de intuição sensível. Defendo uma interpretação alternativa segundo a qual a intuição sensível em Kant deva ser entendida nos termos do que McDowell(seguindo Evans) denomina sentido de re cuja principal característica é a dependênciado objeto (obj...

O objetivo deste trabalho é rever criticamente algumas interpretações contemporâneas da noção kantiana de intuição sensível. Defendo uma interpretação alternativa segundo a qual a intuição sensível em Kant deva ser entendida nos termos do que McDowell(seguindo Evans) denomina sentido de re cuja principal característica é a dependênciado objeto (obj...

Representação e Ceticismo

This paper presents a reconstruction of Kant’s Deduction and Kant’s Refutation of Idealism as a form of argument direct against an empiricist form of skepticism questioning the validity of empirical judgments about external object in its so-called empirical sense and not in its transcendental one.

O objetivo do artigo presente é uma reflexão acerca a possibilidade de atribução de intencionalidade à luz das chamadas hipóteses céticas, enquanto hipóteses no sentido em que nossas crenças e percepções poderiam ter uma origem causal totalmente distinta daquela que lhe atribuímos. Contra a posição cética, pretendo defender a seguinte tese naturali...

The purpose of this paper is to defend and further develop an account of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. Rather than identify the phenomenal character with the intrinsic properties represented by perceptual experience (phenomenal externalism), my aim is to support the alternative claim that the phenomenal character of a perceptua...

UFRJ RESUMO: Defendo aqui três novas interpretações para as noções capitais de consciência empírica, apercepção empírica e apercepção transcendental na filosofia teórica Kant. Em sentido empírico, a consciência é sempre entendida por Kant como uma forma de consciência de objeto, produto da representação de uma entidade, resultante da chamada síntes...

¿Qué quiere decir que el hombre es un ser racional? ¿Hay una o muchas racionalidades? ¿Son los límites de lo que podemos decir sobre la realidad también los límites de la realidad? ¿Es la percepción de algo real la garantía de que todos percibimos lo mism si